Heartbreaker: A Memoir by Mike Campbell

Mike Campbell's Heartbreaker isn't just a rock 'n' roll memoir; it's a proper yarn, a fast-paced and tender-hearted account that feels destined to become a classic of the genre. Part rags-to-riches story and part raucous, seat-of-the-pants adventure, it chronicles Campbell's life and times as the lead guitarist of the legendary Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

From the band's very beginnings in 1976 right up to Tom Petty's tragic passing in 2017, Mike Campbell's iconic and melodic guitar playing was the bedrock of their sound. Think of those unmistakable riffs and textures on timeless tracks like "American Girl," "Breakdown," "Don't Come Around Here No More," "Mary Jane's Last Dance," "Learning to Fly," and "Into the Great Wide Open" – that's Campbell's magic. Beyond his instrumental prowess, Campbell was a crucial songwriting partner, co-penning some of the band's biggest hits with Petty, including "Refugee," "Here Comes My Girl," "You Got Lucky," and the anthemic "Runnin' Down a Dream."

From their early days grinding it out in Florida to their dizzying ascent to superstardom, and even through Petty's acclaimed solo albums like Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers (Petty never recorded without him), their collaboration was enduring and their music timeless. Campbell's songwriting talent extended beyond the Heartbreakers too, as evidenced by his co-writing credits on Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" and Stevie Nicks' "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around."

But Campbell's story isn't one of instant rock 'n' roll glamour. He pulls back the curtain on his less-than-glamorous beginnings: a tough childhood on the north side of Jacksonville, often teetering on the edge of homelessness, raised by a single mum struggling on minimum wage. The pivotal moment came when his mother, after months of saving, bought him a second-hand acoustic guitar for his sixteenth birthday. Armed with a chord book and a transistor radio, Campbell painstakingly taught himself to play.

A chance encounter led him to the University of Florida, a lifeline for a broke Campbell with nowhere else to go and the looming threat of the Vietnam draft. It was in a rundown farmhouse in Gainesville that he met a twenty-year-old Tom Petty, and their shared dream soon became inseparable. Together, they chased that dream all the way to Los Angeles, where Campbell found not only his destiny but also the love of his life, Marcie.

Heartbreaker is the at-times gruelling but ultimately triumphant story of that dream realised, taking Campbell from the very bottom to the absolute pinnacle of rock music, where Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers remained a force for decades, creating an astonishing body of work. Despite his brilliance, Campbell has always been soft-spoken and intensely private. In this memoir, he finally opens up, revealing himself as a shrewd observer of the highs, lows, and absurdities of life in rock 'n' roll. With a songwriter's eye for detail and a voice as direct and unpretentious as his playing, Heartbreaker is an instant classic – a heartfelt portrait of one throwaway kid's lifesaving love of music and the extraordinary heights he reached through luck, collaboration, humility, and undeniable talent.